A growing number of telecom carriers are likely to replace their network hardware with software (SDN & NFV) because of compelling economic case offered by them. However, this transformation is expected to happen in a phased manner and will offer new business model for both operators and network providers. In an interview with EC’s Mohd Ujaley, Vikram Nair, assistant vice president and global head of innovation for communication service providers segment at Aricent. tells, “The success with business models that IaaS and PaaS providers such as Amazon and Google had, will be replicated by telecom service providers by offering NaaS (network as a service). NaaS will be an opportunity for engineering services companies to drive new technology introduction into the networks.”
What kind of major shifts we are likely to see with SDN and NFV making inroads into telecom network infrastructure?
SDN and NFV will bring a fundamental shift in Communication Service Providers’ (CSP) approach to build network infrastructure. The network transformation is expected to happen in a phased manner, which will not only help mature the technology introduction methods and processes but also de-risk disruption of network services.
Today, networks are built in silos wherein independent infrastructure is deployed for mobile, fixed, and enterprise markets with minimal or no infrastructure reuse or sharing. Realizing the benefits from virtualization, CSPs are stepping up the efforts to analyze the impact of virtualization on networks and OSS/BSS. It is expected that initial targets for virtualization will be the software components with minimal or no dependency on underlying hardware.
In the next 2-3 years the first steps towards virtualization are expected to find its place in the networks wherein selective independent network components will get virtualized. For instance, in LTE networks, network components that are only software implementation (with no specific hardware dependencies) such as MME, IMS, PCRF, HSS will be the first target. OSS transformation will happen simultaneously to manage virtual assets. This phased transformation will require OSS to support both legacy as well as virtual assets with an external management system to manage the virtualization platform infrastructure.
In the next five years, it is expected that majority of network components will get virtualized enabling CSPs to sell Network-as-a-Service (NaaS). Additional network components which earlier were not targeted for virtualization because of their dependency on hardware platforms will see de-coupling of such components into control and data plane functions, with control plan functions being pushed onto virtualization platforms. For instance, in LTE networks, such network components will be deep packet inspection (DPI), serving gateway (SGW) and packet data network gateway (PGW). This phase will have OSS transformation to not only manage the virtual assets but also the virtualization platform infrastructure in a holistic manner.
At Aricent, we identified the trend quite early and benefits that SDN & NFV technologies will bring. We have been part of SDN and NFV evolution journey since pre-SDN/NFV days, when we helped one of our service provider customer rollout “SDN-like” solution for network traffic steering based on application traffic profile all managed through a centralized controller.
At Mobile World Congress this year, Aricent showcased end-to-end network-as-a-service lifecycle, demonstrated through a complete workflow for setting up a network over a cloud through NFV, monitoring and managing capacity, predict network behavior and extending it to enterprises, mobile virtual network operators/enablers (MVNO/E) and consumers with customized offering.
Today, we offer NFV enabling software frameworks to our OEM customers – vCPE, vPE for access network, vIMS, vEPC, vSBC for core networks and cloud orchestration, OVS offload on hypervisors, DPDK, ODP, inter-VM switching accelerators (SRIOV, NIC offloads etc) for NFV infrastructure also referred to as NFVI.
Likewise, we also offer SDN centric enabling software frameworks for OEMs such as SDN ready application suite comprising of traffic steering for data centers, route optimization for backhaul networks, provisioning and monitoring for multi-layer carrier networks, dynamic bandwidth allocation to name a few.
Our market insight tells us that service providers will have multiple SDN controllers in their networks coming from different vendors or open source. In midterm, service providers will hit a roadblock when they will have no choice but to re-invest in porting SDN applications to other SDN controllers should they choose to replace SDN controller in their networks either as part of vendor strategy or feature set provided by other solutions. To address this challenge, we have also come up with enabling software framework called “SDN Federation”, which will enable service providers preserve their investments in building SDN applications. Which means, that the SDN applications will not require any change should the underlying SDN controllers are replaced.
To share our learning and experience on SDN and NFV technologies, we are also contributing back to the open source community with around 15 contributions already made till date.
What are the major factors that are propelling the demand for SDN and NFV?
Major factors that drive the demand for SDN and NFV are improved time-to-market, reduction in CAPEX and OPEX and opening up of new revenue streams from business standpoint. From operations standpoint network elasticity, multi-tenancy and ease of operations will be the drivers.
As far as deployment goes, we are seeing SDN/NFV technology adoption happening at a much faster rate than anticipated. Service providers across the globe are either planning or have already started trials for SDN/NFV. Some of them are leading the technology adoption. For instance, a mobile service provider in APAC region has its VAS infrastructure virtualized in excess of 40% of the capacity. Another whole sale data provider with undersea cable assets is already selling bandwidth in pay-per-use model leveraging SDN technology.
Over passing the legacy system seems to be one of the biggest challenge for both SDN and NFV deployment. Do you see any other challenge in India?
I agree, since the revenue generating legacy assets cannot be discarded or swapped unless there exists a business case that balances out CAPEX with OPEX savings over the next few years. However, some of these legacy assets might also pose a threat of being at end-of-life phase.
To address this specific challenge, service providers have started to focus on strategies for legacy and SDN/NFV infrastructure to co-exist until there is a complete overhaul. For instance, from a commercial standpoint, CAPEX for SDN/NFV will largely happen for new infrastructure and services, but not for swapping the legacy infrastructure and from a technology standpoint, legacy infrastructure will get controlled via the so called proxy agents. These proxy agents will represent the legacy infrastructure as a SDN entity in the network until the legacy is replaced with SDN entity as part of network transformation.
However in context of India, there is one big challenge. Given that service providers have spent huge amount of money to acquire spectrum recently, there is limited scope for network modernization or expansion, and the choice between either of those will have to be made.
Some countries including India has been criticized for importing low and cheap quality of hardware products that experts say create barrier to technology transformation. Do you agree with it?
If that is the case, then the argument should also hold true for SDN and NFV equipment which will have similar gap in price to performance ratio when comparing top of the line vendors and vendors offering low cost alternates. Here, the key is to appreciate the fact that benefits SDN/NFV brings, are on top of the traditional mode of operation.
The market in SDN/NFV space is going to be very competitive. In-fact, even now it is flooded with solutions from new vendors who were traditionally not a “solution provider” to telcos. Therefore, the solutions are likely to be commercially viable much earlier than it was expected.
Will the dynamic of contract change for both operators and network service providers in the light of deployment of SDN and NFV?
Absolutely, there will be new business models that will emerge and it will be service providers who are going to benefit from it. The success with business models that IaaS and PaaS providers such as Amazon and Google had, will be replicated by service providers by offering NaaS (network as a service). NaaS will be an opportunity for engineering services companies to drive new technology introduction into the networks, deliver network programing functions in form of apps, drive efficiency in network operations through automated and centralized network orchestration and assurance.